Sensation and Perception

Question 1

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 1

Scientific study of mental functions such as perception, attention, language, memory, emotion, reasoning and decision making

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

Defined as the process of acquiring knowledge about environmental objects or events via the senses

Question 3

How is the perceptual process broken down?

Answer 3

Sensation and Perception

Question 4

What is sensation?

Answer 4

The process of transforming physical stimuli to electrical

Question 5

What is perception?

Answer 5

Process of interpreting these signals for conscious awareness and for action

Question 6

What is the order of the perceptual process?

Answer 6

Distal stimuli –> Proximal stimuli –> Sensation : Conversion to neural signals which are sent to the brain –> Perception : Signal processing and interpretation

Question 7

What did Aristotle (384-322) believe perception is for?

Answer 7

Animals must have perception if they are to live

Question 8

What has perception evolved to do?

Answer 8

Aid survival and reproduction of organisms
Seek out desirable objects and situations and avoid dangerous

Question 9

What are the 5 senses?

Answer 9

• Somatosensory perception
• Olfactory perception
• Auditory perception
• Visual perception
• Gustatory perception

Question 10

What can caribou sense ?

Answer 10

Light in the UV spectrum enabling them to detect camouflaged predators

Question 11

What can elephants sense?

Answer 11

Very low frequency sounds and vibration allowing them to communicate over large distances

Question 12

What can snakes detect?

Answer 12

Infrared radiation, enabling them to generate a thermal image of prey

Question 13

Is perception veridical?

Answer 13

Senses would not evolve if they did not provide reasonably accurate information about the world

Question 14

What are illusions?

Answer 14

Loosely defined, illusions are situations in which perception differs from reality

Question 15

What is ambiguous figures?

Answer 15

Images that give rise to two or more distinct perceptions

Question 16

What are ambigous sounds?

Answer 16

Sounds that can give rise to multiple bistable and stable perceptions

Question 17

What is auditory stream segregation ?

Answer 17

This is where most people switch between hearing the sound on the right as triplets of an ABA pattern or as two streams of AAA pattern and BBB pattern

Question 18

What are impossible objects ?

Answer 18

Sometimes sensory input is interpreted by the brain as representing objects or scenarios that are physically impossible

eg penrose triangle, schusters conundrum, endless stairs

Question 19

What is the ideas behind perception as interpretation ?

Answer 19

• illusions illustrate that perception is not a clear window into reality
• objects are not perceived directly
• brain is doing best to figure out what is out there based on information available

Question 20

what are the two sources of information available ?

Answer 20

Current sensory input
Existing knowledge about the environment

Question 21

What is the top down process? - conceptually driven

Answer 21

Use knowledge about the structure of the world to influence perception

Question 22

What is the bottom up process? - data driven

Answer 22

Take information from the senses and make judgements about the nature of the world solely based on this information

Question 23

What is the lilac chaser?

Answer 23

FAILURE TO PERCIEVE

Eyes fixed on the cross where there are always 11 pink blobs and one gap

Question 24

What is the Hermann Grid?

Answer 24

PERCEPTION OF OBJECTS IN ABSENCE OF A STIMULUS

Grey spots at the intersections of the white lines

Question 24

What is the Muller Lyer illusion?

Answer 24

PERCEPTUAL DISTORTIONS

Which horizontal line is longer (arrows)

Question 24

What is the ponzo illusion?

Answer 24

Which horizontal line is longer ( 2 parallel lines tat come closer together)
Objects assumed to be further away are perceived as larger

Question 25

What is the zollner line illusion?

Answer 25

This is where you look at if the long lines are parallel

Question 26

What is the ebbinghaus illusion?

Answer 26

See which central circle is larger

Question 27

What is the cafe wall illusion?

Answer 27

Are the horizontal lines parallel?

Question 28

What is the Shepards table illusion?

Answer 28

Are the tables the same size

Question 29

Some ambigious figure examples?

Answer 29

Necker cube
Rubins Face
Young old lady
Jastows duck/rabbit
Blue and black or white and gold dress

Question 30

What are the constructivist theories of perception?

Answer 30

• Emphasise the importance of top down processing
• Many illusions are described as rational interferences rather than perceptual errors

Question 31

What did Helmholtz (1821-1894) argue?

Answer 31

argued that the inadequate information provided by the sense is augmented by unconscious inference

Question 32

What did Gregory (1966) believe?

Answer 32

Theory of perception as interference
- It is a dynamic searching for the best interpretation of the available date…perception involves going beyond the immediately given evidence of the senses

Question 33

What is the hollow mask illusion?

Answer 33

Our faces are almost always convex so our brains are reluctant to interpret face images as convex

Question 34

What is the direct theories of perception?

Answer 34

Emphasises importance of bottom up processing

Question 35

James Gibson (1904-1974) ?

Answer 35

• Argued that constructivist approach underestimates the richness of the sensory evidence we receive
• There are a great variety of cues in the natural world that provide much information about the structure of the environment
• The perceiver is not a passive observer but interacts with the environment to pick up information